Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem Academic Symposium 2024
29 October 2024, Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem
Indigenous Perspectives - The View from Jerusalem: Land, People, Story
Symposium supported by
Much of the current antagonism toward Israel has roots in academia. It is there that a false narrative has taken hold, one that portrays Israel as a foreign colonizer, an occupier of Palestinian lands. We intend to offer an alternate Indigenous perspective that centres the view from Jerusalem, its land, people and story.
The Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem Academic Symposium is a first step toward full conferences in major academic centres worldwide. We will build a body of scholarly work that challenges false narratives, re-centres Jewish Indigeneity and strengthens the relationship with the Indigenous of the Nations.
Below you will find a number of the presentations, in many cases in both video and text form. More will be added shortly. Scroll down to view the full line of speakers and their bios.
Symposium themes included:
Jewish Indigeneity and connection to the land
Confronting and deconstructing false narratives on Jewish Indigeneity
Settler-colonialism, denial of peoplehood and their role in antisemitism
Relationships between Indigenous peoples and Jewish ideas and Israel
Natan Sharansky
Keynote Speaker
Natan Sharansky is an author, intellectual, former Soviet dissident, and human rights activist. He spent nine years imprisoned by Soviet authorities and immigrated to Israel in 1996.
Dr Izabella Tabarovsky
The Denial of Jewish Peoplehood and Jewish Connection to the Land of Israel in Late-Soviet Propaganda
Prof Gil Troy
Gil Troy discusses the importance of Identity, the power of land and the power of journey. He asserts, ’We know that sometimes loving the land, holding the land, as we saw on October 7th just living on the land, can extract an unfathomable price...’
Dr Charles Asher Small
The Implications of Antisemites Defining the Jew: From Indigenity to Colonial Settler
Dr Sheree Trotter
Antisemitism and the Hijacking of Indigeneity: the roots of the so-called “Māori View on Israel-Palestine”
Prof Ilan Troen
The Use of Settler Colonialism to Deny Jewish Indigeneity in the Holy Land
New videos will be added shortly
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Natan Sharansky
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Natan Sharansky is an author and intellectual, former Soviet dissident, and human rights activist. He spent nine years imprisoned by Soviet authorities and immigrated to Israel in 1996. Sharansky has held several ministerial positions in the Israeli government, including that of Deputy Prime Minister. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by USA in 2006. Among his various roles he serves as Chairman of Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.
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Prof Wayne Horowitz
SYMPOSIUM CO-CONVENER
Topic: Indigenous Narratives of Land and Sky - Modern and Ancient, Arctic Canada and The Land of Israel
Wayne Horowitz, Hebrew University, is an archeologist and academic specializing in ancient Near East and Assyriology. For the past decade Professor Horowitz has worked on a joint research program with the Gwich'in Tribal Council, Department of Culture and Heritage in the Northwest Territories, Canada, to protect and recover Gwich’in knowledge of stellar and other heavenly phenomena.
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Dr Sheree Trotter
SYMPOSIUM CO-CONVENER
Topic: Antisemitism and the Hijacking of Indigeneity
Sheree Trotter is Maori (Te Arawa). She earned her PhD in history from the University of Auckland (Thesis: Zionism in New Zealand to 1948). In 2012 she co-founded the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation for whom she has interviewed seventy Holocaust survivors. Sheree completed an Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy scholars-in-residence course at University of Oxford in 2023. She is co-director of Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem.
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Prof Ilan Troen
Topic: The Use of Settler Colonialism to Deny Jewish Indigeneity in the Holy Land
Ilan Troen is Lopin Professor of Modern History Emeritus at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, Stoll Family Professor in Israel Studies Emeritus at Brandeis University, USA, and founding director of the Israel Studies centers at both institutions. He is Founding Editor of the journal Israel Studies, and 2023 recipient of the Association for Israel Studies “Lifetime Achievement Award.” His most recent book is Israel/Palestine in World Religions; Whose Promised Land?
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Dr Izabella Tabarovsky
Topic: The Denial of Jewish Peoplehood and Jewish Connection to the Land of Israel in Late-Soviet Propaganda
Izabella Tabarovsky is a scholar of Soviet antizionism and contemporary left antisemitism. She is a Senior Fellow with the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities, a Research Fellow with the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and ISGAP, and a contributing writer at Tablet Magazine. She has published widely. Follow her on X @IzaTabaro.
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Prof Gil Troy
Topic: TBA
Gil Troy is a Senior Fellow in Zionist Thought at the JPPI - the global think tank of the Jewish people -- and the author, most recently, of "The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath: Facts, Figures, History" and "To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream."
Troy, a Distinguished Scholar in North American History at McGill University living in Jerusalem, is an award-winning American presidential historian and a leading Zionist thinker. Read more...
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Dr Charles Asher Small
Topic: The Implications of Antisemites Defining the Jew: From Indigenity to Colonial Settler
Charles Asher Small (D.Phil, Oxon) is the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) and the Director of the ISGAP-Woolf Institute Fellowship Training Programme in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies, Discrimination and Human Rights at the Woolf Institute, in association with St. Edmunds College, University of Cambridge. Charles is additionally a research fellow at St. Edmunds College.
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Jan Safford
Topic: Did Jonah Find a Minyan? The Israelite Community at Nineveh
Jan Safford is a PhD candidate at the Hebrew University whose research topic is evidence for 'the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel' in documents in cuneiform script from the Neo-Assyria exile. He is one of the leading scholars in the study of the Al-Yahudu archives from the time of the Babylonian exile. Safford's research extends in time from the establishment of the first Judean and Israelite exilic communities outside of the Land of Israel down to and beyond the time of the return that we learn about from Ezra and Nehemiah.
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Bradford Haami
Topic: Genealogy, Land and Story: A Māori Perspective
Brad Haami is an author and media creative involved in Māori storytelling in television, drama, cinema and museum exhibition formats. He is currently a lecturer and freelance author focusing on Māori history and knowledge.
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Karen Restoule
Topic: TBA
Karen Restoule is a Senior Fellow in Indigenous economy and governance at Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Canada's only truly national public policy think tank. Karen is a public affairs professional with Crestview Strategy. Previously, she served Indigenous leaders advancing innovative policy solutions to legacy challenges. She also led Ontario’s administrative justice system as a public sector executive. Read more...
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Maj. Res. Shadi Khalloul
Topic: TBA
Shadi Khalloul is the President & Founder of ICAA NGO, an Israeli Aramaic Maronite from Kfar Birem, was born in Gush-Halav, near the border with Lebanon. He was the 1st Christian to become paratrooper officer in 1995. He has a degree in International Business and Finance from the University of Las Vegas. Shadi was recognized by PM Netanyahu for his success in encouraging Christians in Israel to join the IDF and fully integrate into Israeli Jewish society.